


Altering the Deal

by Mandaloria593



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Din Djarin Removes the Helmet, Extremely Dubious Consent, Falleen (Star Wars), Helmetless Din Djarin, M/M, Non-Consensual Kissing, Pheromones, Post-Season 2, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:28:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28277640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mandaloria593/pseuds/Mandaloria593
Summary: On his new quest to restore Mandalore, Din needs to make a deal with another wretched soul whom fate stepped in to rescue. But Prince Xizor alters the deal from one of credits to one of vengeance. And before he would get the name he really desired, he would get another.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Xizor
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25





	Altering the Deal

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't read Shadows of the Empire since the turn of the century, but since we're enjoying revisiting EU characters, how about this Falleen fellow?

Din passed through a security scanner under the watchful eye of four large and imposing guards. Two were Gamorrean. None were human. 

Din was allowed to enter without incident, and two of the guards escorted him down a narrow corridor that led to a single set of ornate bronze doors. 

The guards opened the doors and ushered Din inside. Alone. 

“Ah, the Mandalorian arrives.”

Din stepped further into the room. It was dim, almost dark, and his helmet automatically compensated for the lack of light. 

A single figure rose up from a plush semi-circular settee and gestured for Din to come closer. “Welcome, Mandalorian.” The voice was not exactly what Din would call inviting. It was cold, and it chilled Din’s skin, much like the temperature of the room.

As Din got closer to the man in the shadows, he observed green, reptilian skin with a provocative sheen that was almost translucent. The man, clothed in rich-looking burgundy robes, appeared to glow. Black shiny hair. Icy blue eyes. As cold as his voice had been, a wide smile greeted Din. The man was stunningly handsome. Even knowing so beforehand, Din was somewhat taken aback. 

Grudgingly, Din took the proffered seat on the low settee, making sure to keep at least several feet of distance between himself and his host. 

The man poured clear liquid from a pitcher into two cups sitting on the knee-height fabric cushions in front of the settee. Din demurred with a slight tilt of his helmet. 

“Right to business, then,” the man said. “You have a proposition for me.”

“Yes,” Din answered simply. “Mandalore needs—”

“I’m not interested in what Mandalore needs,” the man interrupted. “Not yet at least. Let us talk first.”

Din shifted on the settee, right hand absently resting on the hilt of the darksaber. He knew his consternation was obvious and rude, but his host was slippery, manipulative, and not to be trusted. Yet he was also, at present, _necessary_. Din exhaled through his nose, trying to exude patience.

“I have not often had dealings with Mandalorians,” the man said conversationally, his sharp blue eyes pinned on Din. “Not that anyone does, anymore,” he added, his voice parroting the same insincere grief the Client had displayed when he’d paid Din in imperial-emblazoned beskar stolen during the Great Purge. Fett’s old contacts had gotten Din this meeting. And, like Fett, the man had been presumed one of the wretched lost, whom fate had decided to save. 

“You know what it takes to rise from the dead,” Din offered, half flattery, half plea. 

Din’s solemn statement earned a laugh and another gleaming, disarming smile. The man leaned closer into Din’s space. “Yes, yes, rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Is that so true of Mandalore?” 

Din nodded, thinking of what he learned from Bo-Katan and their travels—and travails—with their homeworld. Din’s thoughts drifted, meandering down recent memory of Mandalore and Concordia. He was not born of Mandalore, but he was Mando’ad.

Din blinked rapidly as he realized his own distraction. This was no place for it. But the temperature of the room—and Din’s body beneath his amour—was rising. He wrinkled his nose under his helmet, wondering if he was already succumbing to . . . suggestibility. 

He peered at his host, who was scrutinizing him intensely. The man asked bluntly, “Is it also true that the helmet never comes off?”

“This is the way.” Din forced himself not to back further away or reveal any discomfort at the inevitable question. His host did not need to know that Din had already broken the Creed. Twice. Maybe three times. But Din’s pulse was racing. The man hadn’t moved any closer to Din, but there was something in his steely blue gaze—and something in the taste of the air around him—that was absolutely mesmerizing. 

“Forgive my curiosity, Mando,” the man said in sibilant hiss, sounding not at all like a man used to asking for forgiveness . . . or permission. “But I am fascinated by your culture. Tell me, are you allowed to remove the helmet out of necessity? Have you done so?”

Din could not break away from the man’s captivating face. But his preservation instincts kicked in on autopilot. “That is none of your business.” And he remembered why he was there. “Business,” he repeated, almost numbly. “I’m here for a business deal.”

“I know,” the man replied easily, even as he blithely ignored Din’s statement. His voice turned more insistent. “Tell me when you first removed this helmet in front of another living being.”

Din swallowed, his mouth gone dry. He suddenly, desperately wanted to answer. “This year. There was . . . an IG unit. A droid. He said he was not a living thing. I needed medical care. But,” Din shook his head slowly, “I think he was alive. In his own way. He sacrificed himself to save the child.” 

“The child?”

“Grogu, my foundling.” 

“And then?” the man prompted. “Who else has seen you without the helmet? Surely not just a droid.”

“No,” Din conceded. He blinked again, but couldn’t clear his senses. That _smell_ . . . “Mayfeld. I had to remove it when we infiltrated an imperial mining station. I had to scan my face to get the coordinates to save the child. But I was . . . I had to . . .” Din trailed off. He closed his eyes, needing to look away from the piercing blue eyes. It didn’t help. The eyes weren’t the problem. “They’re all dead. Except Mayfeld.”

“And why did you leave Mayfeld alive, if he’d seen your face?”

Din fidgeted with his hands. His gloves felt sticky, like he was sweating. _Was_ he sweating? “He helped me. I wouldn’t have been able to rescue Grogu without him. It wouldn’t have been honorable.”

“Honor is important to you.”

“Yes.”

“Anyone else?”

“In front of my child.”

“That’s sweet,” the man said, soundly amused. The demanding tone lightened, like this was all just a fun game, and everything was going to be fine. “Tell me more.”

“I wanted to say goodbye,” Din said, and felt as if his voice had disconnected from his brain. He couldn’t control it. He didn’t want to talk about this. But, at the same time, he felt compelled to keep talking. He wanted to answer the man in front of him. “I had to complete my quest to reunite Grogu with his kind. I took my helmet off so we could see each other face to face before . . . before I had to let him go.” Din slumped against the settee, as if telling the story took great effort. In a way, it did. The pain was still fresh. Raw. A wound that hadn’t—wouldn’t—heal. “I told him not to be scared. And then he took him away.” Din could not keep the anguish out of his voice.

A hand covered his gloved one, squeezing in what felt like a compassionate gesture of strength. Din took comfort in it.

“So the person who took your child saw your face, too?”

“Yes. The Jedi.” 

Blue eyes narrowed, and the hand resting on Din’s glove suddenly gripped him painfully. The pigment on the man’s skin seemed to shift, and he hissed angrily at Din. “What. Jedi?!”

<> <> <> Earlier <> <> <>

_“Just keep the meeting short,” Fennec said. She pointed at Din’s helmet. “The respirator device we’ve put inside your helmet should help filter some of the effects, at least enough to delay them.”_

_“Should?” Din repeated dubiously._

_“It’s not going to matter,” Fett reassured. “This is a business meeting. The man wants to do business. So do you. And he’s no friend to the Empire, not anymore. He has absolutely no reason to kriff up a good proposition.”_

_Fennec nodded in agreement. “You’ll get your meeting. You’ll make the offer. He’ll either take it or he won’t.”_

_“He’d better,” Fett grunted. “He’s the only contact we can find with even close to the amount of iridium-87 you’re going to need to restore Mandalore to habitable conditions. And finding him wasn’t easy. Everyone thought he was dead. There were rumors . . . but then the rumors died, too.”_

_“Keep it short, and it’ll be fine,” Fennec advised again. “We have the credits to back up the offer.”_

_“I still don’t understand why the deal can’t be arranged over subspace comms,” Din muttered, checking himself over to ensure he’d removed most of his more obvious armaments. He still had a few knives hidden beneath his beskar plates. And the darksaber hung from his otherwise empty holster. Most beings didn’t know what it was. When asked, he’d tried claiming it was a flashlight, an extendable baton, and once even a flask. No one guessed it was a lightsaber._

_“He insists on these one-on-one meetings before taking on any deal,” Fett answered calmly. “Especially one involving these kinds of resources . . . and these kinds of credits.”_

_Fennec pursed her lips, like she was going to say something else but refrained. “Keep it brief. Get in. Get out.”_

_“In and out,” Din repeated. With a nod, he stepped down the ramp of Fett’s ship._

<> <> <> Now <> <> <>

Xizor was incredibly angry, but also incredibly fortunate to have ferreted out this information from the formerly tight-lipped Mandalorian now under his thrall. “What. Jedi?!” he demanded. 

But his sudden vexation had soured the pheromones he was exuding, and the Mandalorian riled back, snatching his hand away.

“The one who answered the call,” the Mandalorian said readily enough, but he mumbled the vague answer like his tongue was tripping over it. 

Not good enough. The Mandalorian was resisting if he could still hedge his responses to hide a name. He needed more . . . persuading. 

Xizor took a deep breath to calm himself. Direct application would secure the information. He glided until he was hip to hip with the Mandalorian, who had perched himself at the very edge of the settee. One more inch and he’d find himself sitting on the floor. Yet the Mando remained resolute, not aborting the meeting and running for the door. The Mando was obviously determined to see the meeting through. Xizor had something he wanted. And the Mando had something Xizor wanted, desperately, only the Mando didn’t know it wasn’t credits. 

Xizor concentrated on exerting more of his influence. “Take off the helmet.”

The Mandalorian turned sharply towards him. 

It wouldn’t do for Xizor to remove it himself. He needed to be sure the Mando was under his thrall.

Xizor repeated himself. “Take off your helmet.”

Slowly, the Mandalorian’s shaking hands came up to his silver helmet and pushed it up off his head. Brown human eyes affixed on Xizor’s blue ones. Humans were always the easiest. This particular human was easy on the eyes, too. Middle-aged but with boyish charm and soft features, plush lips, trimmed mustache, and tousled hair. 

“That’s it,” Xizor encouraged, carefully gentling his tone. “Well done. Now, _relax._ ” Xizor placed one hand on the Mando’s shoulder and one on his chest and pushed him back against the settee’s cushions. 

Xizor stretched out a hand and brushed it against the Mando’s cheek, which had a light stubble that tickled Xizor’s palm. The man didn’t flinch, but he closed his eyes. That was fine. 

“All those beings who saw your face . . . the droid. The dead imps. The mercenary. The child. The _Jedi._ And now me.” Xizor eased his hand up into the man’s hair, cupping his scalp and angling his head. Before he got the name he really desired, he would get another. “Tell me your name.”

The man’s eyes shot open. The soulfulness in them had given way to something dark and wild, like a bird caught in the hand, wings fluttering futilely. “Din.”

Xizor blew cool air over Din’s face, and watched the man’s lashes lower. Xizor softly exhaled over Din’s lips and t’sked disappointedly. “Full name.”

“Din Djarin.”

Better. The man, Din Djarin, was still now, hovering in trancelike anticipation. Xizor moved in. He pressed a fairly chaste kiss to Din’s lips. Whisper-soft. Undemanding. His fingers caressed the back of Din’s nape, and he could feel the man shiver under his touch. “If you put the helmet on as a young boy, and all these recent adventures were as you told them, was that your first kiss?”

“Yes,” Din murmured. His eyes were still closed. 

Satisfied, Xizor leaned in and kissed Din again. This time, he applied more pressure and snaked out his tongue to lick along the seam of Din’s lips, which softly parted for him. Xizor took the invitation to explore Din’s mouth, licking and searching, tangling his tongue with Din’s as he deepened the kiss. 

Din’s hands came to rest tentatively on Xizor’s waist. As much as he was enjoying the way the man was responding to him, Xizor didn’t mind that the rest of Din’s body was covered in the beskar armour. The smooth, polished metal was pleasantly cool on Xizor’s cold-blooded body. 

And soon, Xizor would have what he needed.

With a soft sigh, Xizor nipped at Din’s lips, and Din’s tongue chased his, seeking hot warmth again. Then Xizor bit down carefully, nicking skin, and a droplet of blood pooled on Din’s lower lip. Din lapped it up with his tongue, and Xizor followed him, moving to sit more firmly astride the man’s lap and pressing him back against the settee. Xizor aggressively dominated the man’s mouth, using more teeth, and practically infused his scent through Din’s gasping inhales. 

Xizor was not unaffected. Din was lovely. His inexperience at kissing was no hindrance, willing as he was to submit to Xizor’s lead in this most tender of affections. 

Xizor relished the whimper that Din emitted when he separated their lips and retreated to sit next to him. 

“The Jedi. Who was he,” Xizor interrogated quietly. 

Din’s eyes were glazed, and his lips were wet. He answered plaintively in a hoarse whisper, “He said he’d protect the child with his life.”

Xizor nodded. “As you would. As you did.” Xizor grew frustrated again. “The name, Din. Tell me the Jedi’s name,” he commanded. 

“Sky--Skywalker,” Din stuttered as if Xizor was torturing the name out of him with violence. “Luke Skywalker.”

_Finally_. Xizor felt equal parts elated and dismayed. His moment for revenge was finally at hand. This Mandalorian had access to the one being in the galaxy Xizor most wanted dead—at least, the one being still _alive_ that Xizor wanted dead. Vader’s death had been confirmed.

He would barter for the Jedi’s destruction.

Xizor reached for Din and rewarded him with a slow, lingering kiss—and another shot of pheromones, just because he could. Power over others, especially those with power themselves, was always a heady sensation. It would be hard to let this one go. 

“Now, tell me why you are here, Din Djarin.”

Din blinked at him in sweet confusion. Din looked at his helmet, sitting on the cushions in front of him, as if it held the answer. Xizor waited for him to collect himself. Din cleared his throat and breathed deeply as if to ground himself, but he just ended up inhaling more of Xizor’s potent scent. Xizor laughed silently to himself, knowing that wouldn’t help the man gather his wits at all. 

<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>

_Why was he here?_

  
Good question. Din wanted to respond truthfully, but the answer eluded him. He reached for the glass of liquid in front of him, hoping it was water and not something alcoholic. 

When he brought the cup to his lips, he was relieved to taste cool water. He gulped it down in urgent swallows. The hydration helped. And the strong scent that had clouded his mind was abating.

_Keep it short_ , Fennec had said. Too late for that.

Fett had told him that Xizor _wanted to do business._ That was it. “I have a business proposition for you, Prince Xizor.” 

Din wondered how long he’d taken to respond when he realized Xizor was reclining on the other side of the settee and reading a data pad. Xizor seemed disinterested, but Din was fairly sure he was listening. 

“You know of Mandalore’s fate,” Din began. “You know more about biochemical weapons than most. You know what it takes to clean up after . . . “ 

“After disaster,” Xizor finished for him, returning his full attention to Din. That much of the man’s focus on him was still rather dizzying. But Din’s desire was manageable now. He remembered how Fett had told him that Xizor was intimately familiar with the havoc that biochemicals could unleash on an unsuspecting populace. Xizor’s father and mother, his brother, his sisters . . . family and fellow Falleen all had perished in the wake of Imperial bioweapon experiments gone awry. And not all of them had died from the flesh-eating bacteria, either. Many of them, most of them, had been eradicated when Darth Vader ordered the lab and the surrounding region to be razed to the ground. 

“You have access to iridium-87,” Din continued. “We can use it to help restore Mandalore from a wasteland. And we are willing to pay for it. We have amassed many credits—”

Xizor interrupted again with a wave of his tapered fingers. “I’m altering the deal.”

Din’s stomach dropped. Kriff. It was bad enough he’d had to break the Creed again, and as apparently willing as he’d been to lose his dignity mere minutes ago, he couldn’t lose the deal, too. “If not credits, what do you want?”

“I want Skywalker dead.” 

The words fell easily from Xizor’s tongue but landed like a bomb in Din’s lap. 

Din bit his lip, mentally grimacing when he tasted copper and realized he’d reopened one of the wounds from Xizor’s _teeth_. Xizor had _bit_ him. Dank farrik, Xizor had _kissed_ him.

Xizor crossed his arms and swept up his opulent robes before folding one leg over the other. “Kill Skywalker for me, and I will give you the iridium-87.”

“What makes you think I can defeat a Jedi Master?” Din asked.

Xizor scoffed and pointed to the darksaber, still hanging at Din’s hip. Xizor knew what it was and hadn’t even bothered to try to disarm Din of it. Apparently, he hadn’t needed to. “The Mandalorians and Jedi are ancient enemies. Isn’t that vendetta the very origin of your people’s forging of beskar? The only metal that can withstand the blade of the sorcerer’s lightsaber?” 

Din felt exposed and itched to put his helmet back on. Xizor knew more than he had let on. Din _couldn’t_ kill Skywalker. But the true reason was because of Grogu. Grogu had picked Skywalker—had called to him on the strangest magical interstellar call Din had ever seen. Skywalker was Grogu’s best chance to learn to control his abilities. And even though it had hurt, _still hurt_ , Grogu belonged with Skywalker. Skywalker could protect him from both physical and metaphysical dangers that Din could not. Din focused on that. “I saw him take out a platoon of Dark Troopers. One of them nearly killed me. He’s too powerful.”

Xizor chuckled. “Just stand next to him while visiting your child, and flip the switch on that saber. There will be a cauterized hole in his stomach before you can say ‘may the Force be with you.’”

Din shook his head. “It can’t be done. You ask the impossible.”

In the blink of an eye, Xizor was crowding Din’s space again, looming over him and touching his face. Din tried to hold his breath, but Xizor’s intoxicating scent wafted over him again. Xizor spoke roughly right against Din’s cheek. “Kill the Jedi, and save your homeworld. Kill Skywalker, and save Mandalore. It’s your choice.” 

Xizor’s lips scraped against Din’s stubbled cheek once more, then disappeared. 

Din hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes, but when he opened them, Xizor was walking to the door Din had entered earlier. Xizor’s hand hovered at the door’s panel. “You know my terms, Din Djarin.”

The meeting was over. Xizor was showing him the door. 

Din quickly shoved his helmet back on his head and approached the doorway where Xizor stood waiting to shepherd him out. 

As the bronze doors opened and Din stepped across the threshold, he paused to look one more time at Xizor. If there was something Din could say that would make him change his mind, make him take the credits, he would say it. But even a brief glance confirmed that the man’s demeanor was as cold and deadly as frostbite, with no trace of the heat of his kiss, and no chance that he’d be receptive to any final appeal. 

Din left the room, and the little flame of hope he’d been nurturing guttered.

But it didn’t go out. 


End file.
